============================================================================== Netscape 4.8 (X11) ============================================================================== ********************************************** IMPORTANT! Before going any further, please read and accept the terms in the file LICENSE. ********************************************** The Netscape Client products now come only in gzip format. Though gzip is available on many Unix systems, some (for whatever reason) may not have it. If this is the case on your system, you can download a pre-built gzip binary (and/or source) from the URL ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/unsupported/gnu/ * To unpack a gzip-compressed tar file into the current directory, use some variation of the following command: gzip -dc the-file.tar.gz | tar -xvf - Release notes for this version of Netscape are available on-line. After starting the program, select "Release Notes" from the "Help" menu. This will take you to the URL http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/4.8/relnotes/unix-4.8.html which lists new features and known problems of this release. To submit bugs or other feedback, use the following URL http://help.netscape.com/forms/bug-client.html If for some reason you cannot submit feedback using that form, you may send email to x_cbug@netscape.com. Please be as specific as possible about the version of Netscape you are using, and the hardware and version of the OS. If possible, include a test case for the problem, including a URL. ============================================================================== Configuration Notes ============================================================================== General Notes: Starting with 4.0, we strongly suggest setting the MOZILLA_HOME environment variable to point to the Communicator installation directory. Many Netscape Client components now look at MOZILLA_HOME as a fallback or default mechanism in addition to the existing mechanisms from previous releases. csh, tcsh: setenv MOZILLA_HOME /path/to/install-directory sh, bash, ksh: MOZILLA_HOME=/path/to/install-directory export MOZILLA_HOME Mail: This section applies only to Netscape Communicator. Please see the Release Notes for important information on configuring and using Netscape Mail. Also, particularly if you use procmail, see: http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/relnotes/demo/movemail.html for important system-dependent issues about file locking. Knowing how to configure and use Netscape Mail will prevent you from losing mail messages. Java Applet Support: Java Applet support is available for all Unix platforms. To run Java applets with the Java-enabled version, Communicator needs to be able to load Java class files from a file called java40.jar. This file is included in the distribution, and is searched for using the following algorithm: if($CLASSPATH environment variable is set) Look at $CLASSPATH, where $CLASSPATH is a colon-delimited list of / entries. else Search in order: $MOZILLA_HOME/java/classes $HOME/.netscape /usr/local/netscape/java/classes /usr/local/lib/netscape If you were running Java with an earlier version of the Netscape Navigator, you need to replace your old moz2_0.car file, moz*.zip file, or java_3* file with the new java40.jar file supplied in this distribution. Netscape Plug-in Support: Netscape Plug-in support is available on AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux 2.0.x, NCR Unix, OSF/1 (Digital Unix), SINIX, SCO OpenServer, SunOS 4.1.3, and Solaris. A default plug-in (libnullplugin.so) is included in the distribution. The plugin list is generated using the following algorithm: if($NPX_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable is set) Look at $NPX_PLUGIN_PATH, where $NPX_PLUGIN_PATH is a colon-delimited list of directories. else Look at all the following directories in order, overriding previous entries in case of duplicates: /usr/local/lib/netscape/plugins $MOZILLA_HOME/plugins $HOME/.netscape/plugins More information about Unix plug-ins is available at: http://home.netscape.com/plugins/search_pi.html Netscape Dynamic Font Support: Netscape Dynamic Font support is available on Solaris 2.4 and IRIX. The TrueDoc dynamic font displayer (libTrueDoc.so) from Bitstream Inc. is included in the distribution. Font displayers are searched for in the following order, and will use the first one found in case of duplicates: $HOME/.netscape/dynfonts $MOZILLA_HOME/dynfonts /dynfonts /usr/local/lib/netscape/dynfonts Nethelp Support: To load Nethelp topics, Communicator needs to be able to find the Nethelp directory that contains the Nethelp documents. The Nethelp documents are found under the directory "nethelp/" included with the distribution. The directory is searched for using the following algorithm: Search in this order until found: $HOME/.netscape/nethelp $NS_NETHELP_PATH/nethelp $MOZILLA_HOME/nethelp /nethelp /usr/local/lib/netscape/nethelp SmartUpdate: This only applies if you have install privileges for Communicator. Communicator now can update its own components. To do this, a version registry mechanism has been created. SmartUpdate will support more than one version registry. At install time a global registry is created in the install directory and populated with version information of various installed components. A local registry is created as needed for each user and placed in $HOME/.netscape. Information regarding updates is stored in the local registry unless the MOZILLA_SHARED_REGISTRY environment variable is set. In this case ONLY the global registry is consulted and updated (assuming the user has write permission for the registry file). Asynchronous DNS host lookup Netscape Communicator 4.8 has the ability to do asynchronous DNS host lookups. This feature is on by default and nothing needs to be done to configure it. If you experience DNS lookup problems, you can turn this feature off by setting the environment variable MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS to True: csh, tcsh: setenv MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS True sh, bash, ksh: MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS=True export MOZILLA_NO_ASYNC_DNS Configuration Files from Version 1.12 or earlier: If you are migrating from Netscape Navigator Version 1.12 or earlier, a new directory is created in which configuration files are placed. This directory is called `$HOME/.netscape'. Existing 1.12 or earlier configuration information is copied into this directory upon first execution of Netscape. A dialog is presented asking whether or not you would like to automatically delete your 1.12 files. If you do not choose to delete the old files, then they will continue to be used by older versions of Netscape, but versions newer than 1.12 will never touch them. If you have a file or directory in $HOME called .netscape, it is highly recommended that you rename it prior to running this version. If you don't, there is a possibility that you could lose data contained in this directory (e.g., old preferences, bookmarks, cookies, and so on). ============================================================================== Installation Troubleshooting ============================================================================== AIX: Netscape requires AIX 4.2 with the X11R5 and Motif 1.2 libraries. If you are running an older version of the operating system, you will get undefined symbols at run-time; unfortunately, the only solution is to upgrade to a more recent version of the OS. Under AIX, the MOZILLA_HOME environment variable must be set, and the Communicator binary (called 'netscape_aix4') cannot be run directly. See the 'netscape' script for more information on running Communicator on AIX. HP-UX: In order to take full advantage of netscape's Drag and Drop features, it is highly recommended that you upgrade your Motif libraries to the latest version available from HP. At the time of this writing, the latest Motif library is available from HP as patch PHSS_11626 (for HP-UX 9.0x), or PHSS_14449 (for HP-UX 10.x). This patch will fix many bugs in Motif Drag and Drop that caused several problems with symptoms such as system hangs and core dumps. PHSS_14449 (for HP-UX 10.20). This patch will fix many bugs in Motif Drag and Drop that caused several problems with symptoms such as system hangs and core dumps. IRIX 5.3: Initializing Input Method support in the Composer and HTML message composition (e.g., for Japanese input) can halt netscape. Because of this, the IRIX 5.3 version is shipped with this feature disabled. To enable Input Method support you need to install SGI Motif patch 1701, and add the following line to your .Xdefaults file: *editorImInputEnabled: true Linux: Incompatibilities with Netscape are known to exist in some versions of libc. If you think you are experiencing a libc-related problem, try downloading a different version of libc from: http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/GCC/ If possible, please see the Release Notes for more details. NetBSD, FreeBSD: We have been told (but have not verified) that the BSD/386 binaries will work on x86 systems running NetBSD 1.0 or FreeBSD 2.0 (but not FreeBSD 1.1.5.1.) A native FreeBSD version of Communicator is now available for FreeBSD 2.2. Solaris 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.1, and 2.6: Solaris 2.6 only: Solaris 2.6/OpenWindows Communicator 4.0x does not render fonts properly. OpenWindows 3.6 patch 105633-05 fixes this problem and is available from http://sunsolve.sun.com. Alternatively, you can add the following lines to your $HOME/.xinitrc file: xset +fp /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/ xset fp rehash CDE users on 2.6 will need to add the first of the two lines above to their HOME/.dt/sessions/session etc (be sure the permissions on this file are 755). Exit Communicator and then restart. The Solaris 2.4 Communicator is dynamically linked with the X and Motif libraries. If the Motif dynamic libraries are not properly installed, Communicator will exit with this error: ld.so.1: netscape: fatal: libXm.so.3: can't open file: errno=2 Installing Motif dynamic libraries will get Communicator working. If Communicator exits on Solaris 2.5.1 with a message similar to the above saying that it can't open libresolv.so.2, you will need to install Sun patch 103663 (for SPARC) or 103664 (for x86). If you have problems running the Solaris 2.4 (SPARC) executable on Solaris 2.5.1, a native Solaris 2.5.1 version is available which may solve the problems. On Solaris 2.6, you may experience problems with fonts not rendering properly. To fix this, add the following lines to your $HOME/.xinitrc file: xset +fp /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/ xset fp rehash CDE users on 2.6 will need to add the first of the two lines above to their $HOME/.dt/sessions/sessionetc (be sure the permissions on this file are 755), then exit and restart. SunOS 4.1.3: The SunOS 4.1.3 package comes with two executables: netscape and netscape_dns. This is because SunOS uses two different, incompatible methods of resolving host names (Domain Name Service, and Network Information Service, formerly known as Yellow Pages.) Only one of these executables needs to be installed on an individual site. It is usually possible to configure your YP/NIS server to consult a DNS server for resolution of hosts not in the YP maps. Consult your system administrator for details. If netscape is crashing under OpenWindows 3.0, make sure you have all of the relevant patches, including patch 100444. SunOS 4.1.3 and BSD/386: These distributions also includes a directory called "nls". This directory is a standard part of the MIT X11R5 distribution, but is not included with X11R4- or X11R6-based systems (such as OpenWindows 3.0 or earlier, and XFree86 3.1 or later.) On these systems, Netscape has been linked against X11R5 (because Motif 1.2.4 has some bad bugs in conjunction with X11R6.) Unfortunately, X11R5 has one rather serious bug, which is that if this "nls" directory does not exist, the program will dump core any time you try to copy, or paste to or from a text field! So, if you don't have the "nls" directory on your system, you will need to install it first. Here is where Netscape looks for it (these default pathnames are hardcoded into the executable): SunOS 4.1.3: /usr/lib/X11/nls/ BSD/386: /usr/X11/lib/X11/nls/ If you choose not to create the directory there, then you must set the XNLSPATH environment variable to the directory where you did install it. * Included with all distributions is a file called XKeysymDB. Without this file, many warnings about "unknown keysyms" will be generated when the program starts up, and most keyboard equivalents won't work. This is a general problem with running Motif programs on systems not configured for Motif, and so will be necessary on most Sun systems. This file is included with all packages because some systems have an older version of this file, so you may still get some warnings. The XKeysymDB file normally goes in /usr/lib/X11/XKeysymDB or /usr/openwin/lib/XKeysymDB, but you can override that with XKEYSYMDB environment variable. * Also included with all distributions is a file called Netscape.ad, which lists the default resources which are built in to the program. It is not necessary to install this; it is provided for informational purposes. See the comment at the top of Netscape.ad for more information. * If you get a "Cannot locate host" dialog at startup, this is a sign of problems related to name resolution. If you're on a Sun, see the comments above about the two executables. * If you get a "Cannot connect to host" dialog at startup, it could mean that you are behind a firewall, and need to tell Netscape about your SOCKS or proxy server. Choose Preferences from the Edit Menu, open the Advanced category and then select Proxies; or, consult your system administrator. * Please read the release notes under "Help -> Release Notes". This document is updated as problems are found, so please check it before reporting a bug. * And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla." ==============================================================================